The voice in your head

[Someone here]

How many selves are we? 

I'm sure you all talk with yourself.  What's fascinating about this is that you can hear multiple people talking inside your head.. 

There is just a voice In your head that's talking to "you" all the time.. Who is it if it's not you?   Do we have more than one self?  

 

[peanutspathtotruth]

There was recently a thread on IFS (Internal Family System) therapy, which inspired me to work with it. It understands that we have indeed multiple parts - many of them - with their own voices and own agendas. It teaches you how to recognize and work with them, how to heal them and allow them to stop their extreme behavior and instead take on healthy roles. All of it leads to psychological harmony, all of it only works through love and compassion and curiosity from the true (personal) Self. Consciousness work is like a cheat code for this kind of work because you can easily fall back into Self and see more clearly how your mind functions. 

This, in my opinion, is the pinnacle of shadow work. 

[Raptorsin7]

@peanutspathtotruth I made an appointment with an IFS therapist in a month from now. I'm really excited to start this path, the way IFS conceptualizes healing is very promising imo.

I can list like 5 different parts of myself off hand and I've barely even started with IFS

[peanutspathtotruth]

Just now, Raptorsin7 said:

@peanutspathtotruth I made an appointment with an IFS therapist in a month from now. I'm really excited to start this path, the way IFS conceptualizes healing is very promising imo.

I can list like 5 different parts of myself off hand and I've barely even started with IFS

Amazing! Looking forward to your report. 

And yeah same, I just started, but already explored and wrote out about 5-6 parts, and already did two spontaneous sessions that went deep - like even healing an exile already. Amazing stuff. 

[Someone here]

@peanutspathtotruth never heard about it before. Gotta give it a Google. 

[Breakingthewall]

the voice in your head is the manifestation of your need for control. your need for control is a need to keep yourself separate. your need to keep yourself separate comes from the sense of external threat that you have perceived. So the voice in your head is fear

[Someone here]

1 hour ago, Breakingthewall said:

the voice in your head is the manifestation of your need for control. your need for control is a need to keep yourself separate. your need to keep yourself separate comes from the sense of external threat that you have perceived. So the voice in your head is fear

What about hearing multiple voices in your head? 

[Breakingthewall]

12 minutes ago, Someone here said:

What about hearing multiple voices in your head? 

Well, there are different voices, they talk to each other, they argue, there are also images, situations, theaters, memories, they provoke emotions, even supposedly pleasant sensations, but deep down their substance is anxiety. when they speak there is always a kind of knot tightening. the problem is that you do not notice that knot because you always have it. If they shut up, it is like a soap bubble that explodes and there is no longer self, there is only the naked experience without separation, but after a while they return, they are the most persistent, and you cannot silence them because you are them

[Someone here]

2 hours ago, Breakingthewall said:

and you cannot silence them because you are them

That's creepy. 

[peanutspathtotruth]

4 hours ago, Breakingthewall said:

when they speak there is always a kind of knot tightening. the problem is that you do not notice that knot because you always have it.

Yup I can confirm. Once noticing the knot, you really understand how painful it is to keep this theatre up and running. 

Edited September 19, 2021 by peanutspathtotruth

[How to be wise]

You should be asking these questions to your psychiatrist. 

[Javfly33]

6 hours ago, Breakingthewall said:

the voice in your head is the manifestation of your need for control. your need for control is a need to keep yourself separate. your need to keep yourself separate comes from the sense of external threat that you have perceived. So the voice in your head is fear

oh that's very good sir 

[Breakingthewall]

@Someone here

14 hours ago, Someone here said:

That's creepy. 

Yeah it is, is a kind of loop that humans enter and from which to exit is very difficult, but if you don't go out there is no rest, since your substance is anxiety. spirituality is an instruction manual to get out of the loop. Going out is liberating, it means abandoning everything, but if you realize that "everything" is anxiety, you can abandon it without any problem. 

12 hours ago, peanutspathtotruth said:

Yup I can confirm. Once noticing the knot, you really understand how painful it is to keep this theatre up and running. 

Really painful and stressing, It's surprising that humans can endure 80 years with that stress, I guess we've evolved for that

 @Javfly33 thanks friend

[Nahm]

22 hours ago, Someone here said:

How many selves are we? 

I'm sure you all talk with yourself.  What's fascinating about this is that you can hear multiple people talking inside your head.. 

There is just a voice In your head that's talking to "you" all the time.. Who is it if it's not you?   Do we have more than one self?  

 

Don’t under estimate the sneakyness of believing thought content - if the intention is peace of mind / peaceful mind / no mind / quieted mind. A thought is a thought. ‘Selves’ is not actual selves, but a thought “selves”, etc. ‘People talking inside your head’ is the content of thought (not actual people in someone’s head of course). Expression, and some time a lot of it in an ongoing manor is most effective. Especially with someone who already completely understands this from having quieted ‘the mind’. 

[Someone here]

@Nahm Yea of course "the voice in the head" is comprised of thoughts.  I don't mean there are actual people inside your skull.. But the thoughts can seem that way. They definitely can appear that way. 

 

I have a question.... What is the origin of thoughts? Where do thoughts come from? Why do we have them at all? 

 

[Nahm]

10 minutes ago, Someone here said:

@Nahm Yea of course "the voice in the head" is comprised of thoughts.  I don't mean there are actual people inside your skull.. But the thoughts can seem that way. They definitely can appear that way. 

 

I have a question.... What is the origin of thoughts? Where do thoughts come from? Why do we have them at all? 

 

To give or offer more thoughts in regard to the origin and actuality of thoughts would be a disservice. This reveals itself to itself in & as the silence of the practitioner. More thoughts never resolve thoughts which are only apparently about thoughts. 

[Batman]

10 minutes ago, Someone here said:

@Nahm Yea of course "the voice in the head" is comprised of thoughts.  I don't mean there are actual people inside your skull.. But the thoughts can seem that way. They definitely can appear that way. 

 

I have a question.... What is the origin of thoughts? Where do thoughts come from? Why do we have them at all? 

 

You need to contemplate this. You can tackle this activity from different views: 

• Thinking is concept: the activity of mind is conceptual in nature. it has no actual substance in physical reality.
• Thoughts come and go: take a close look and see that thoughts or internal chatter comes and goes, so they can't really be you. You may generate them to produce some internal state, or some disposition toward aspects of experience. For example, you may judge an other so you can generate negative feelings toward him, and so reject him from your or other's experience. You use thought to manipulate your emotional state so you can direct your experience. 
• You are not really talking to your self, but more like to an other. There is no reason for language to occur, unless your self needs to communicate with an other self. Try to imagine an experience where there are no others, and so the content of your mind will likely be very simple (revolve around memories and associations regarding physical survival) and without all the social management that occurs in the mind. 
• Thinking is a function of mind, and you created the experience of mind so it can serve you in some way. Although they differ in nature, asking what is the origin of thought/mind, is the same as asking what is the origin of perception. Try to see the mind as like a quasi six sense that enables you to create conceptual distinctions in reality; assign different values to different distinctions; manipulate your physical sensations; create representations of past experience (aka memories); imagine or scheme future experience; focus your perceptions on particular distinctions. The mind, or the ability to conceptualize in some way, is a function of survival. In our social complex world and the enormous amount of data and distinctions we create with language, the mind became a very dominant aspect of our experience. Imagine that this entire forum could not exist without our minds capacity to have a meaning for. so. many. words. which. have. no. meaning. of. their. own. because. they. are. only. pixels. on. a. screen. you. are. reading. right. now.

Also, you might want to try to stop your thinking and internal chatter for as long as you can, an see what happens for your sense of self.

 

[Someone here]

1 hour ago, Nahm said:

To give or offer more thoughts in regard to the origin and actuality of thoughts would be a disservice. This reveals itself to itself in & as the silence of the practitioner. More thoughts never resolve thoughts which are only apparently about thoughts. 

I didn't ask how to resolve thoughts or to get rid of them. I asked about their origin. Do you have any insights regarding that?  

[Breakingthewall]

the mind is a survival tool. humans have to remember things and plan for the future to survive. we also have genetically encoded language, which makes us build a very complex social system. the mind that remembers and projects is very focused on social relationships, since survival depends on them. These relationships have verbal communication as the main vehicle. the mind focuses entirely on this and creates a system of self-worth that depends on what we think we represent to others. a movie of loves, grievances, betrayals, comparisons, attachments, fears, adjectives is created. a kind of soap opera that becomes our only reality. This anxious and half-crazy mind that clings to a world and an identity created by itself, cannot stop, because if it do, the movie collapses, so although there is no one around to interpret the theatre, it interprets it itself. The imaginary self talking with itself. A kind of madness that affect whole humankind 

I believe that the virulence of the soap opera is proportional to the rejection that you have received or believed to receive. if it becomes unbearable, it is when you seek enlightenment. It can also be for other reasons I suppose, but this is one of weight

Edited September 20, 2021 by Breakingthewall

[mandyjw]

Thought would say the origin is you, but you are a thought. So why would you use thought to find out about the origin of thought? That would be like trying a suspect and throwing out all other witnesses, evidence and only taking the suspect's word for what happened as truth.

origin (n.)

c. 1400, "ancestry, race," from Latin originem (nominative origo) "a rise, commencement, beginning, source; descent, lineage, birth," from stem of oriri "arise, rise, get up; appear above the horizon, become visible; be born, be descended, receive life;" figuratively "come forth, take origin, proceed, start" (of rivers, rumors, etc.), from PIE *heri- "to rise" (source also of Hittite arai- "to arise, lift, raise," Sanskrit iyarti "to set in motion, move," Armenian y-arnem "to rise"). Meaning "beginning of existence" is from 1560s; sense of "that from which something derives its being or nature" is from c. 1600.

So in order for there to be an origin, in order for something to rise, it must rise up from below, or for it to come forth, it must come forth from something. Start, origin, ending, all is the realm of thought. I know I move, because my world stands still. I rise and climb the ladder, because the ground stays where it is. The origin is Self, being without end or beginning.

Wouldn't take my word for it though. I'm still the suspect. It's like we're playing the game Clue, except I haven't got a clue. 

 clue (n.)

"anything that guides or directs in an intricate case," 1590s, a special use of a revised spelling of clew "a ball of thread or yarn" (q.v.). The word, which is native Germanic, in Middle English was clewe, also cleue; some words borrowed from Old French in -ue, -eu also were spelled -ew in Middle English, such as blew, imbew, but these later were reformed to -ue, and this process was extended to native words (hue, true, clue) which had ended in a vowel and -w. The spelling clue is first attested mid-15c.

The sense shift is originally in reference to the clew of thread given by Ariadne to Theseus to use as a guide out of the Labyrinth in Greek mythology. The purely figurative sense of "that which points the way," without regard to labyrinths, is from 1620s. As something which a bewildered person does not have, by 1948. https://www.etymonline.com/search?q=clue

Like a ball of yarn, I'm all spun up around myself. Unravel Me and you're left with nothing.